Harrell gave up eight runs on seven hits (including the three homers) and five walks with two strikeouts over 41⁄3 innings. He threw 67 of his 112 pitches for strikes, continuing a poor early trend by the pitching staff.

Harrell has the Astros’ lone quality start of the season, but that outing will be remembered as Yu Darvish’s near perfect game for the Texas Rangers.

Porter and pitching Doug Brocail reviewed stats immediately after the loss, and they weren’t pretty.

“In the three-game series, (the A’s) had 56 at-bats with five or more pitches,” Porter said. “In a game, we’ve stressed to our guys early on from the beginning of spring training (that) you have to attack the strike zone.

High pitch counts

“And if you don’t attack the strike zone, you’re going to find yourself behind in the count and in deep counts. Your pitch count is going to climb. It’s going to climb real fast. That’s pretty much what happened to Lucas today.”

A’s lefthander Brett Anderson (1-1), the son of University of Houston pitching coach Frank Anderson, held the Astros to five hits and two unearned runs with two walks and 10 strikeouts over six innings.

After Harrell issued consecutive one-out walks to Brandon Moss and Young in the second inning, Seth Smith gave the A’s a 2-0 lead with a two-run single to right-center field.

Harrell issued a leadoff walk to Crisp in the third. Two outs later, Lowrie drilled a 2-1 pitch into the Crawford Boxes for a two-run homer. Crisp gave the A’s a 5-0 lead with a solo home run to right field in the fourth.

A’s in the groove

Young put Harrell out of his misery with a three-run shot to left in the fifth inning, giving the A’s an 8-0 lead and prompting a call to the bullpen.

“Guys are really finding a way to lock in and have good at-bats throughout the game,” said Young, a Bellaire High grad. “Even guys who aren’t having success, they’re battling and getting pitch counts up and fighting off tough pitches.

“Every hitter in the lineup is just putting up solid at-bats. And if you continue to do that, you’re just going to continue to put runs on the board.”

The A’s lit up the scoreboard against Harrell, who couldn’t even toss his glove to himself. To his credit, he didn’t ask for it back.

“I’ve got plenty of gloves,” he said. “I didn’t need that one.”

• • •

Astros update

Sunday: Athletics 9, Astros 3.

Record: 1-5.

Today: Seattle Mariners at Safeco Field, 9:10 p.m.

Pitchers: Philip Humber (0-1) vs. Joe Saunders (0-1).

TV/radio: CSNH; 790 AM and 1010 AM (Spanish).

Game recap: Seth Smith gave the A’s a 2-0 lead with a two-run double in the second inning to set the tone as Oakland completed the three-game sweep with a 9-3 victory over the Astros on Sunday afternoon. Former Astros shortstop Jed Lowrie added a two-run home run in the third inning, Coco Crisp hit a solo homer in the fourth and Chris Young added a three-run blast in the fifth for the A’s to knock out Astros righthander Lucas Harrell (0-2).

Big bat: Houston native Chris Young of the Athletics hit a majestic three-run blast off the façade in left field in the fifth inning.

On the mound: Lucas Harrell struggled mightily, giving up eight runs on seven hits and five walks with two strikeouts and three home runs over 4 1/3 innings. He threw 67 of his 112 pitches for strikes. Reliever Xavier Cedeno added 2 2/3 scoreless innings for the Astros.